Whaaat? No way! (if you know, you know)

I know I said these would start to space out, but dang, 3 months between updates seems a bit excessive. I might not even remember everything, but regardless, here’s the highlights.

Back to work and although if I won the lottery I would retire in a heartbeat, it sure feels great to be able to be at work. Stress the word able. I am winding down on my donated medical leave and finally looked at doing fun leave.  I was able to combine some medical with some fun these past two weeks, this would be me easing back into just doing something other than doctoring.  My trip was book-ended with medical appointments, and thanks to a very understanding agency, was able to work via telework and maxiflex for a large portion of my trip. So what exotic location did a shoot off to? Minnesota and Wisconsin, trust me, that’s pretty exotic when it isn’t an ICU bed. We decided to drive which gave us the flexibility of stopping in Helena, MT to see my good friends Jenny and Jack and catch up, as with everyone, it had been much too long since we had seen each other.  After a quick visit with them we headed to Minnesota to see my mom and dad and my dear friend Christina.  It was good to put eyes on mom after her stroke this past fall, and give my father a break from running mom around, and when I mean run, take that literally.  My mom’s favorite store is Costco so I took her shopping while the menfolk relaxed. Now mind you, mom is 30+ years older than me, had a stroke, and uses a walker. I swear I saw smoke coming off of those tennis balls as she speed racer her way through Costco, weaving in an out like a Nascar driver. I managed to lose her 4 times in that store, thought I had finally lassoed her only to have her slip away one more time.  I’ve been wanting to get more steps in, and shopping with my mom will do that – if I would’ve had my Samsung watch on I’m sure it would’ve recorded over 10,000 steps just hunting down mom in these massive stores (I’m a glutton for punishment and took her to super Target afterwards).  Bless my dad for having to do that multiple times in a week, I barely made it 2 days before she broke me.

After Minnesota and a good catch up with Christina we headed 2 hours further east to Black River Falls, WI.  There we were able to see just about every relation of Brent’s that we needed to see.  Parents, kids, grand kids, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews.  Made it back in time to attend my nephew Bradley’s wedding to Natalie, and although cold and rainy it was a beautiful wedding.  So happy for the two of them and was even able to see some of my old WI Dept. of Natural Resource buddies as Natalie works for the DNR.  That was a pleasant surprise and added to such a wonderful event. I’m sad that I left the reception a little early due to a sore body (damn cancer) and missed my granddaughter twerking – how no one got video is beyond me. If you are reading this and got video – please share!!! The only bummer (aside from missing the twerking episode), was I ran out of time to stop in to Sand Creek Brewery and see Jim and Todd plus other regulars, and connect with Cathy and others. I did purchase some Sand Creek beer to take home, but if you ever find yourself in Black River Falls – stop in and say hi to them from me and enjoy a good local beer.

Sadly every great vacation must come to an end, we headed back so I could be in Spokane for my PET scan and every 3 week infusion. Again, we swung in and said hi to Jenny and Jack, dropping off some WI cheese (Jenny’s from WI so she loves getting cheese as much as we do) before continuing west.  We didn’t stop by the house as it was a straight shot and same distance from Missoula to Spokane as it would be from Kooskia to Spokane. Rolled into Spokane in time to get my quarterly PET scan.  Next day was my appointment to go over PET results followed by my infusion.  Just so you know, my goal at these appointments is to a) not cry and b) make my very reserved doctor from India smile or better.  I nailed it.  She told me my PET scan was awesome, in fact, better than awesome and that I should call that original doctor who told me to go home and get palliative care and tell him my current status.  I said ya, I’m gonna call him up and say “suck it, I made cancer my bitch.”  That got a hearty laugh out of both her and her scribe.  I then said, “my work here is done, I made you laugh today.” My oncologist thinks I am doing so well that she’s considering taking me off chemo.  Whaaat? No way (a youtuber saying for those wondering). This doesn’t mean I get a break from driving once every 3 weeks to Spokane, it means that I will not be getting the hard core poison but rather just the immunotherapy, currently I get both. I will admit I am nervous to do that, with me thinking, why fix what ain’t broke.  But chemo is really hard on your body, heart, joints, etc.  And just maybe my hair will grow back, although everyone tells me I’m rocking the bald look.  I keep having hair dreams that I wake up and all of a sudden have long hair, FYI, I don’t have long or even short hair when I wake up.  Although one day while gazing at my beautiful bald head in the mirror – I noticed one hair (yes, just one), sticking straight up on the top of my head, at least the length of my finger and stark white.  Figured it was my hair giving me the equivalent of the middle finger for putting poison in me that made it all fall out. Prior to heading east I had gotten an MRI, teledoc’d to hear results while travelling only to have my neurologist tell me that nothing has changed – and no change is great news. All they are looking for is something new or bigger – so hearing that it was all the same made the kick off to my vacation a happy one and the PET results wrapped up a great couple of weeks.

I know I must’ve missed somethings in this summary, it just feels so good to engage with my co-workers, finally go on a trip to see family, some whom I hadn’t seen in 16 months, and get out of Idaho for a bit.  Upon our return the tulips had sprung, my radishes tried to grow but my chickens, who we let free range, are all jerks and dug them up (obviously the chicken plucker sitting in the garage didn’t give them the hint of what I could do to them if they keep digging up my garden), our asparagus grew like weeds, the lawn needed a serious haircut and the deep snow on the forest melted off considerably.  Time now to head to the woods and try to fill my turkey tag. Next trip on the books is to see my brother and family in Seattle – much shorter drive at least, and I’ll make sure to pack eggs, honey and asparagus, all fresh from our home.

Happy Spring everyone, glad I’m here again to stop and smell the flowers, hope everyone else is taking the time to do the same as life is just much to short and precious.